Running, Eating, Repeating

As Internet is non-existent out at the Team Camp of Champs, I am only able to post while in town. The second week of camp went so much better than the first. It is difficult to understand how well behaved the second week's coaches and campers are until you have the 1st week's to compare them to. One of the most enjoyable things about the second week's camp is the close relationships we have built with the campers and coaches. Part of the week was spent having a water balloon fight with one of the teams and then planting a ventriloquist dummy in their cabin for them to find when they went to bed. While this is certainly not helping them to become better runners, it gives them a common "enemy" to join forces against. I saw one of the best example of this to date when we played one team's entire varsity in volleyball. The teamwork and communication that they were displaying was clearly being put to the test against six males in their early twenties. They ended up losing but showed a lot of character in the game and came back to win the second game before losing the third as well. As crazy as it sounds, a pickup game of volleyball may have been the most worthwhile thing that they did all week.

Little of this...

It occurred to me that I did not take the time to explain a little about myself and my situation. I am a graduate student at Tiffin University. I am entering my 2nd year in the program and will be working at the Team Camp of Champs for 3 weeks for a sports mentorship. The director of this camp is my superior at my day job coaching the Tiffin University Cross Country Team. His name is Ron Martin and he has been having this camp for a number of years. Three years ago, Ron extended this camp to allow more teams to take advantage of it. My hope is that I will be able to assist him and make each week run as smoothly as the camp did when there was only one week.

Mentorship: "Running Smooth"

Before my mentorship began, most of the work needed was simply getting camp ready, getting preliminary numbers, and making sure not to forget anything that would necessitate us coming back into town once the camp began. For the most part, I was just following directions from Ron and my duties did not really extend past taking down information and making sure we have enough camp shirts, food, etc. However, I am proud to say that I did bring a significant change to camp this year. I suggest to Ron that we use the cereal dispensers in the TU Cafeteria and bring some of the older ones out to camp. I figured that this would allow us to be more organized and minimize the mess. A few days in, I will admit that we were not correct! Everyone really felt like the dispensers would help but for some reason that have resulted in more of a mess. Also, Ron made the decision to keep cereal out all day but did not follow that up with the other necessary changes. Cereal is out all day, though bowls and spoons are not. This resulted in cups being filled up which are a big reason for the mess. This issue has been somewhat addressed and hopefully things will begin to go better! Thus far, the biggest change from last year to this year's experience is that Ron is putting much more trust in me. The owner of the camp came the other day and during lunch (one of our busiest times) Ron just told me that I needed to run things and he would be back later. It was definitely a little nerve racking but obviously we made it through!!!